Food in 1920...
It was a hot topic. Everyone had a hand in the pie... so to speak.
There were familiar names...
[album 65561 LHJ Argo.jpg]
[album 65561 LHJ Health Bran Art.jpg]
[album 65561 LHJ Sunshine.jpg]
[I really like their motto. "Every meal, every day" I have the same sentiment about cookies. I told Hub Man I would have really liked to have done a little time travel and had the chance to taste all of those cookies, to see if they taste like the ones today. Time travel. Such a rich field for fantasy eh?]
Then there were familiar brands, but the food was.... unfamiliar and even odd to our current sensibilities.
[album 65561 LHJ Oxtail.jpg]
[album 65561 LHJ Milk Spagetti.jpg]
Then we had familiar products from companies that either went under or were subsumed into some larger conglomerate and lost their quaint names....
[album 65561 LHJ Peanut butter.jpg]
[album 65561 LHJ Raisin Bread.jpg]
A note on this raisin bread recipe. As an experienced bread baker myself, I think this recipe, if followed as written, would produce one very dry and boring loaf of bread. Oh wait, I mean 5! loaves of bread, for that is the yield. Yikes! Five loaves of dry and boring bread. Oh the humanity!
[album 65561 LHJ Coconut Margarine.jpg]
I wonder when they dropped the Oleo in Oleomargarine?
Then I give you, [besides the cookies] the product I would most like to try today.
[album 65561 LHJ Fruit Jell.jpg]
Jell-o before Jell-o. With a little glass vile of real fruit concentrate. I want that vile with a powerful desire for the old and quirky in food science. Just think! I might even have an epiphany, were I to be in possession of said cunning little vile. Just like the woman in the following ad...
We finally come to my favorite food ad in the magazine. It could actually be considered one of the short stories. Here we have the tale of the forlorn housewife...
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It's the story of a woman who had become ... 'a drudge' to her homemaking. And how she found a way to "...turn over a new leaf- to start at once to get her upper hand of her job-to run her house, instead of letting her house run her!" And what was the catalyst for this dramatic transformation?
Why tinned meat, of course.
With a jar of mustard thrown in for color and flavor enhancement.
[album 65561 LHJ Libby Close.jpg]
There was such an air of drama everywhere you looked in this magazine. I'm telling you, advertisers knew their stuff. I think they have to work harder now to get our attention. We are quite jaded and exhausted by a lifetime of the hard sell. But in the pages of this publication, the companies fed you their pitch with lovely theatrics, sob stories, and great art. I WANT that little glass vile of fruit and that cardboard box of veal loaf in the WORST way.... and I don't even EAT veal by reasons of conscience.
Let's go to the store. Let's time travel. I want to taste a Hydrox cookie from 1920. What would you like to sample?
P.S.
I forgot to mention one observation. It seemed quite the fashion to garnish almost any food dish with sliced hard boiled eggs. I don't know if this means something, but I just noticed a lot of hard boiled eggs arranged on top of and around the foods.
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What's to wonder about?
Makes perfect sense to me.
Sensible people back in the olden days.
One might even say wise.